


alternative amestrian tour guides for the discerning ninja

by wafflelate



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Maes Hughes Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: Maes Hughes wakes up feeling much less dead than he was expecting. In fact, he feels almost not dead at all — barely anything feels out of place.
Relationships: Nara Shikako & Maes Hughes
Comments: 34
Kudos: 767
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	alternative amestrian tour guides for the discerning ninja

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartbeatstumbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartbeatstumbles/gifts).



Maes Hughes wakes up feeling much less dead than he was expecting. In fact, he feels almost not dead at all — barely anything feels out of place. Maes is absolutely sure that he had a truly horrific shoulder wound, last he was aware, and can blurrily recall cracking a few ribs at the very least. But here he is, breathing easy. An experimental roll of his shoulder reveals that it feels a little weak, like he might have strained it, but otherwise perfectly serviceable. 

And he’s not in a hospital, either, despite the injuries he remembers sustaining definitely being more than bad enough to warrant that. Maes isn’t even _indoors_ — when he sits up, his head brushes against the sturdy canvas top of the tent someone’s shoved him in. He’s been stripped of most of his clothing, too, except for his uniform pants and socks. His boots (and definitely specifically _his_ boots; the laces have a little paint on them from arts and crafts with Elicia last week) are sitting by the tent entrance along with a pile of clothes. Not military cut, and not anything Maes would usually wear, but understated and serviceable. 

There’s nothing to do but get dressed and crawl out of the tent to face whatever situation he’s found himself in. Maes keeps his own pants on, despite the cleaner pants on offer. A man needs his own pants. 

The first thing he sees is rubble and debris. The second thing he sees is a teenage girl lounging on the rubble and reading what looks to be a science fiction novel. She’s dressed in the same kind of drab, serviceable clothes that Maes is now wearing. Her hair is pulled back into a high braid. 

A few details come back to him. She’d had arms like steel bars, hauling him out of the phonebooth. She’d slung him over one shoulder and fought with lightning in the other hand. She’d _definitely_ dropped him at least once — most notably when the _thing_ she’d been fighting had started to grow and turn green — but Maes doesn’t think it’d be fair to hold that against her. It’s amazing a girl like this could lift a grown man at all, let alone with the kind of acrobatic grace he vaguely remembers through the spinning haze of blood loss. 

She must be some kind of Xingese alkahestrist. 

“Well, I guess now we have time for introductions,” Maes says. “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes.” 

The girl marks her place in the book with a finger and looks at him. She’s got even worse eyes than Edward Elric — she’s got the eyes of a _soldier_ — but Maes doesn’t look away. It makes sense, really. She certainly hadn’t flinched from killing that thing, the homunculus, half a dozen times. 

“Shikako,” says the girl. A foreign name if Maes has ever heard one. She goes on, “You’ve been out for a day and a half and your face is plastered all over the newspapers.” She gestures to a pile of rubble holding a small pile of newspaper copies, some magazines, and what look to be even a few trashy tabloids. “You’re wanted for questioning by the military, and the article is full of all kind of insinuations, so you probably shouldn’t go home.” 

True to her word, the top newspaper has a photo of a destroyed park — the one in front of central command where Maes had sought out that phonebooth, now torn all to hell in a variety of exciting ways — and a picture of him. _HUGHES AND ACCOMPLICE STILL AT LARGE_ , reads the front page headline. Maes’ eyes flicker across the article. It’s mostly useless; the really good stuff is never printed for public consumption. 

“They’re looking for you, too,” Maes says when he’s done and can look up at Shikako. “Sorry to have gotten you into this. Although I can’t say I regret it, since you saved my life.” 

Shikako waves a casual hand. “I got _myself_ into it, and I’d do it again. Besides, I could really use a tour guide and you seem like you’ve got time on your hands.” 

“One hell of a vacation,” Maes says. He ruffles a hand through his hair, which is feeling kind of gross but, well, not having immediate access to a shower is the least of his worries at the moment. “You’re from Xing, right?” 

“Yeah,” Shikako says after a pause. “Things were getting kinda... you know... yikes? So. Vacation. Although you all seem to have bigger problems here, somehow.” 

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be any help in finding your emperor a way to live forever, but I definitely know my way around Ametris.” 

Shikako blinks at him, surprised he knows why she’s in Amestris. 

Maes grins at her. “The Intelligence Office of the Amestrian Military doesn’t slack, you know,” he teases. “We’ve received reports all about your mission.” 

They’d received reports recently from agents stationed in Xing that the emperor had begun sending his children to find a source of immortality, but the foreign intelligence division hadn’t put much stock in the rumors. Granted, the foreign intelligence division almost never puts any stock in any news from Xing; Amestris has always been uninterested in Xing, and Maes now has a fairly good idea of why. 

Not that he’ll be telling Shikako about that. The Emperor of Xing doesn’t need to know anything about the philosopher’s stone. 

“Yeah, you’ve got me,” Shikako says wryly. “But don’t worry about that. Either I’ll figure it out or the emperor will die and it will stop being a problem.” 

Conversation dies off as Maes wanders off behind some rubble to take care of some necessary business. Then it takes Maes a whole half hour, between reading the newspaper carefully for everything implied by the censored copy of the articles, to figure out that they’re camped in the ruins of the First Branch of the library. 

He raises some concerns about a campfire or, you know, the _tents_ being noticed by patrolling military personnel, but Shikako had only assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem with a strange sort of grin hanging around on her face, like his worry that they’d be discovered was foolish or quaint in some way. 

Anyway, Maes is _hungry_ , and he knows better than to turn down a hot meal when one is offered. There's rice and meat and fresh vegetables, and while they cook Shikako makes her hands glow to check the condition of Maes' shoulder and ribs. She says he'll have to go easy on them for a week or two unless he wants to re-injure himself, and politely dodges his questions about how healing alkahestry works and why it makes her hands glow. 

Which is fair enough. Alchemists are also cagey about everything. Better to stick to things she's comfortable talking about — like their shared enemy. Over their shared meal, Maes asks, "Did you kill it?" 

“The thing that was attacking you? Uh, maybe, I guess? For some value of killed?” 

That gives Maes absolutely zero information, so he just keeps looking at her until she elaborates. Reluctantly. 

“Captured would probably be more accurate, because I don’t think I killed it permanently. I just sealed it in a scroll.” 

“Sealed in a scroll,” Maes repeats. The words don’t mean anything in that order. A Xingese technique that doesn’t have an exact translation, probably. 

Shikako’s brow creases as she pokes at the fire to make sure it’s out. “It’s a manipulation of space, a... fold, a pocket, created by laying out a seal, a kind of... specialized diagram... on paper and then focusing energy into it.” 

“I had no idea that that was possible with alkahestry.” Even Roy, who had gone through _quite_ the period of researching esoteric alchemy branches and then telling Maes all about them whether he wanted to hear it or not, had never mentioned anything like _that_ being possible with alchemy. Maes is glad that there’s a desert keeping them from making war with Xing if that’s the kind of science they’d have to contend with on the battlefield. 

“It’s a clan technique,” Shikako says with a shrug, as if that's supposed to explain anything. “Anyway, it probably killed that thing, whatever it was, but not _permanently_.” 

"Not permanently," Maes repeats. 

"Yeah," Shikako says. "We'll have to get out of the city before I can pull out anything big enough to really kill it for good." 

Considering what little Maes can remember of her previous fight against that thing, he's very unsettled by the implication that what he's already seen her do _wasn't_ big. 

"Will the containment you're using break down?" 

Shikako shakes her head. 

"Then I don't want to leave the city," Maes says. "There are things I need to look into here." 

She raises her eyebrows with interest. "What kind of things?" 

"A few military alchemy laboratories." Maes grimaces. "And the sewers. There might be tunnels." 

"Yeah there's _something_ underground," Shikako confirms, "and it's gross." She bounces to her feet. "I'd love a guided tour of your fine Amestrian sewers so that I can find it and kill it." 

"I'll be glad to have you along." Maes would rather have Roy next to him and Riza Hawkeye guarding their backs, but beggers can't be choosers. It's this powerful teenage girl or no one, and Maes has already seen that his knife skills won't get him through this. Hopefully Gracia will forgive him for being away for so long and dragging a young girl like this into danger with him. 

Shikako packs up the camp using more alarmingly strange alkahestry tricks to fold it all out of existence. Then she produces a sheet of paper with a good approximate map of Central already sketched out on it. They talk about Shikako's "sensing", about what Maes already knows about their enemies, about his suspicion that the entire country is inside a transmutation circle. 

She takes it all in stride. She extrapolates, plans, and theorizes better than most of the generals Maes has ever met. Shikako is competent and powerful and although Maes finds it strange he's also a little comforted — she seems morally opposed to the sacrifice of a large number of people and without significant ulterior motives. 

Maes nearly-but-not-quite dying in that park at just the right time to gain her sympathy is probably the best thing to ever happen to Amestris. They just might get through this. 


End file.
